Memento Mori Bad Latin
by ibshafer
Summary: Finn finds Karofsky in the locker room and tries to 'talk him down from the ledge...' AU, hints of one-sided Kurtofsky


**Story: **Memento Mori (Bad Latin)

**Fandom: **Glee  
**Author:** ibshafer  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Character:** Dave, Finn, one-sided Kurtofsky

**Disclaimer:** I don't own these people, they own themselves and are just nice enough to let me spin them around the page now and then.

**Summary: **[AU]In the end, there was regret and maybe something more… _Heavy angst_

**Warning:** Up to 2x16

**Word Count: **2579

**A/N:** In Latin, _'memento mori'_ actually means _'Remember your mortality,'_ but even poorly applied, it still felt sadly appropriate; remembrance and the passing of a dream…  
**A/N #2:** I may be smarting, I may be saddened, but I _haven't given up yet_ – this should not be considered a post-script to Kurtofsky; think of it as AU…

Memento Mori (Bad Latin)

_~ ibshafer_

Finn had cursed under his breath when he'd drawn that short straw.

Quinn had been waiting for him to join the rest of the team (and some of the glee club, believe it or not), for an after-practice slice of pizza at that new place that had opened up on Culver Street. (They were thrilled to have some place other than Breadstix to go to for a change…) He'd _wanted _to go with her, she'd looked really hot tonight, but he'd known eventually talk would have moved on to that whole prom King and Queen thing she was so obsessed with and as much as he wanted to be on top again, as much as it would have been cool, he was just sick of talking about it all the time. They hardly _made out_ anymore…

So when he'd drawn that short straw, his knee jerk reaction was to do what any red- blooded – and self-involved – American teenager did in this situation; _he whined_, then he promised to join them as soon as he was done. He'd meant it at the time, but now that he was out there all alone on the field, the arc lights still blazing, pushing that half-full cart around as he picked up stray equipment and footballs, he was just relishing the silence and the cool night air.

He actually thought he might just _volunteer _the next time Coach Beiste was looking for a "victim" for post-practice clean-up. (Football season may have been over, but Beiste said she didn't want them going soft and stupid in the off-season; she wanted them primed for a second championship win next year…) With a full-house back at Casa Hummel – most nights Kurt brought Blaine home for dinner – and Quinn or the glee kids at school, Finn barely got a moment to scratch his balls (read: _think_) anymore.

He had just closed the cart up in the equipment cage – they could sort it out on Monday – and was about to turn the locker room lights off and leave when he thought he heard a sound amongst the lockers.

"Hello," he called. "Who's still here?"

No one answered, but something shifted against the lockers and he thought he could hear someone breathing.

"_Not funny_, dude," he muttered. "Halloween was months ago. If you're here, just say so."

When there was still no response, he began to question whether he'd heard it at all, but he'd be locking up for the weekend and he knew he couldn't just leave without checking. What if someone _were_ still here. What if they'd fallen or passed out?

Making a quick pass down the line, he was just rounding a corner, when he saw someone sitting on the floor, slumped against a bank of lockers.

He squinted into the dark.

_Dave Karofsky? _

"Shit, dude! You _scared_ me," he asked, shocked to see him and wondering why he wasn't with the others at Antonella's. "You all right, man?"

He wouldn't say that he and Karofsky were friends these days, but since that week the football team had been made to join glee, they weren't the enemies they used to be either.

He dropped his jacket on the bench and walked down the aisle.

Karofsky was sitting with his back against the lockers, one knee pulled up to his chest, one leg stretched out in front of him, eyes on something he was turning over and over in his hand.

"What the _fuck_, dude," he said, more a statement than a question. He was somewhat annoyed, but more than a little spooked by the big jock's posture and expression. "You _trying_ to get locked in here for the weekend? You know Beiste'd have your ass if she had to come down here to let you out."

There was a beat, an empty moment in which neither spoke and the only sound was of Karofsky's breathing, and then finally he broke the silence.

"_Just go_, man," Karofsky said under his breath, shifting his face away so that now all Finn could see was hair. "Leave the keys. I'll lock up. Swear." Moving his other hand from where it was holding his right knee fast to his chest, he dragged the back against his face, craning his neck around even farther as if trying to read locker numbers or something.

Finn wasn't spooked anymore.

Now he was down right scared.

"You know I can't do that, man," he said softly, moving closer. "_Something's wrong_."

A bitter laugh, almost a cackle, and Dave still looking anywhere but at him.

"_Nothing's_ wrong, _boy scout_. You just run along now and join for geeky friends." He paused, clearing his throat. "This is none of your business."

_Wait, what? _

"If there's _'nothing wrong,'_ how is there a _'this'_ to be _'none of my business?'_"

Karofsky seemed to consider this for a moment.

"Whatever, dude," he said, voice a warning. "It's _still _none of your business."

Moving a few steps closer, Finn fished the locker room keys out of his pocket and jangled them in Karofsky's direction.

"See these? They mean I'm _responsible_. Of _course,_ it's my business."

He was just a couple steps away now and even in the dim light of the locker room, he could see Karofsky's face; it was blotchy and his eyes were red.

Finn had no idea what was going on, but he had this cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, a feeling that said whatever it was, it wasn't entirely _not_ his business either.

He'd had some suspicions about Karofsky in the past, but they'd just seemed too absurd to entertain before…

_What if…_

He bent and touched a hand to the big jock's shoulder. "_Dude_. You wanna talk about it," he asked, sitting down on the bench next to him.

Karofsky flinched Finn's hand away, turned his _whole_ _body_ away. "_Fuck,_ no! You're the _last_ person I want to talk to…"

'_What the hell did __**that **__mean?'_ Finn thought, but before he could ask the question, Karofsky had lumbered to his feet in an effort to get away from him, dropping whatever it was he was holding in the process.

It tumbled end over end, coming to a stop at Finn's foot.

Hands quick, he managed to pick it up before Karofsky's bear paw could snag it away.

_What the fuck?_

It was a little plastic figurine of a bride and groom, the kind you put on wedding cakes.

"What the fuck, dude," he asked, turning the thing over in his hand; it was at once confusing and weirdly _familiar_. "W-where did you get this?"

But he _knew_.

He knew because he'd _seen_ it before.

_Kurt._

Kurt had been planning to put this _exact_ figurine on their parent's wedding cake. He'd been saving it for years. Finn thought it might have been from Kurt's mom and dad's wedding. Right before the wedding, he'd gone out and bought another one, some swanky porcelain thing, and Finn had just decided that as wedding planner Kurt had either wanted something more sophisticated to use…or that he hadn't want to disrespect the memory of his mother by using it for his father's _second_ marriage, which Finn had thought was fair and understandable.

_Karofsky had had it all along?_

The tumblers kept spinning in Finn's head, but they refused to light on anything; he felt like he was on the verge of making sense of what was happening, but something inside of him didn't _want _to, and so they kept spinning…

When he looked up, Karofsky was back on the floor, his face wrecked, mumbling something over and over.

"_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" _

What was he sorry for? Sorry for _taking_ the thing – which, why _did_ he? Sorry for being such a _dick_ to Kurt, for slamming him around, for _chasing_ him out of the school? Sorry for always being on his case, always having something to say, always having to shove him, or bump into him, or grab him, or…

The last wheel clicked into place and he stood, frozen, just staring as Karofsky melted down at Finn's feet.

"You didn't _hate_ Kurt, did you," he asked, his voice an awed whisper and his belly cold.

At this, Karofsky just buried his head in his hands.

"You _li—_"

"_**No!"**_ Karofsky's shout echoed off the empty locker room walls. He slammed his head back against the metal lockers, face red and chest heaving. "No, no, _no!"_ He was shaking his head, eyes wide, expression tortured.

It hurt to _look_ at him.

Finn had a million questions running through his head – when, where, why, how – but _what_ was screaming the loudest.

"What did you _do_ to him, Karofsky," he asked, unable to keep the dread and the menace out of his tone. Forget love and hate, if he…if he _hurt _his brother, he was dust.

"I didn't mean to do it," Karofsky whispered, shaking his head again. The words started to spill out, but it was almost like he'd forgotten Finn was there, like he was talking to himself or something. "He wouldn't leave me alone. I was just trying to get him to leave me _alone_, but he wouldn't let up. In my face, _screaming_ at me, nothing I said would get him to shut up…"

Finn grit his teeth, asked the question he didn't want to hear the answer to.

"So you hit him."

Another head shake and then an answer that surprised Finn only because he'd been expecting something else.

"_I kissed him."_

_What? _

_Wait…that made sense, too._

Suddenly, it _all_ made sense. In a twisted, uber-screwed up way, it all made sense. Finn had been right; Karofsky _was _a closet case. It was _more_ than that, though. He wasn't just in the closet for being gay, he was in the closet for being _in love_ with Kurt.

"Why didn't you _tell_ him, man," Finn asked softly. "If anyone would have understood, it was him."

"I didn't…it wouldn't…he wouldn't have _cared,_ man," Karofsky muttered. "I was just some big dumb jock who was…was gonna be _bald_ by the time I was, fuck, by the time I was _thirty_…" He laughed here, bitterly.

_Huh? What does that mean?_

Now that he was rolling, Karofsky wasn't stopping.

"…I fucked it all up anyway…" He slammed his head against the lockers again. "If I could've just been straight with him—" Another bitter laugh. "That's _funny_, huh?" He looked at Finn for the first time. "_Fuck_, maybe I should do _stand-up_…"

Finn's shrug was sympathetic, but he just couldn't laugh.

"_Talk_ to him, man. He's a _good _guy, he'll understand—"

Karofsky jerked his head toward Finn, eyebrows narrowed, expression gone from self-pity to angry in zero to nothing.

"Understand _what_? That some fat fuck who's had a crush on him since eighth grade can only show it by _shoving_ him into lockers…" He jerked his chin to the cake topper, still in Finn's hands. "…_stealing_ shit from him, and…and threatening to _kill_ him." Another slam of his head against the locker. Finn wondered absently if he were bleeding yet… "Why _would _he," Karofsky went on. "I treated him like _shit_ and he's…he's got Mr. Perfect, he's got _Ladyboy_ now. Why the _fuck _would he care what _I_ was feeling…"

_Oh…_

Another tumbler clicked into place.

And Kurt showed up after practice hand-in-hand with Blaine tonight, giggling like a girl in love, invincible in the face of his bully, almost _daring_ him to do something.

Finn's eyes went wide as he tried to process it all, surprised to find himself feeling sympathy for the dude that had made his brother's life a living hell.

…_because he loved him…_

Eighth grade? He'd liked him since the _eighth grade_?

_That was…that was hard core…_

And then Finn's memory spun to flashes from Rachel's disastrous party a few weeks ago; Blaine spastic and drunk and _stuck_ on Rachel's face. Kurt had looked…he'd looked _ill_ through most of it and then, after Finn had helped pour the idiot into Kurt's bed, thinking Kurt would probably try to use that drunken state to…to make his own play for the guy, only to see the clear disappointment on his face at breakfast the next morning…

More stories, things Kurt had confided over warm milk and these hard, hard cookies Kurt called _biscutty_, or something, like it made them more interesting (which it didn't): Blaine recruiting the Warblers to confess his love to someone that turned out to _not_ be Kurt; Blaine looking at him like his head was on fire when Kurt confessed _he'd_ thought it'd been for _him_…; Blaine treating him like he was stupid; Blaine treating him like he was a child; Blaine suddenly having this…_what_ was the word Kurt had used? this epicenter? no, it was an _epiphany_…suddenly, after all these months, realizing that _Kurt_ was the one he'd been looking for, all because he'd sung a Beatles song after that had bird died? Kurt wasn't arguing, but even he seemed to think that was strange or insulting or… _"'What if Pavarotti hadn't died?'"_ he'd asked, but he was grinning and breathless and blushing like he didn't care all the same.

Karofsky was still staring off into the distance, but Finn had finally figured out what to say. It might not be the right thing, but it was all he had.

When all else fails…_hope._ Even if it's false, there's always hope.

Hope keeps you going, right? And sometimes, hope can be a true thing.

"Dude," he said, waiting until Karofsky flinched so he was sure he'd heard. "That guy is a _flake_. One minute he's gay, the next minute he's bi, he's crushing on someone new every five seconds and right now he's onto Kurt."

Karofsky was looking at him now, eyebrows telegraphing his confusion. Or maybe he was about to hit him. Hard to tell with Karofsky.

"Why are you telling me this, Hudson?"

"Just don't give up, okay?"

Four years was a long time to like someone. Long enough for it to be more than _like_.

He couldn't condone what that _'like'_ had driven the jerk to do, but he could sort of understand it. He knew from watching his brother struggle, being gay wasn't an easy thing to be – and _Kurt_ had had Burt.

_Four years. _

That had to mean something.

He offered Karofsky a hand up from the floor and the big jock stared at it for a second, then took it, hauling himself onto his feet. "Let's get the fuck out of here," Finn said, crooked grin in place. "This place smells like ass."

Karofsky managed a weak grin. He still hadn't responded to what Finn has said, but at least he was off the floor and, Finn noticed with relief, there was no blood on the lockers…

Reaching for the cake topper, he handed it gingerly to Finn.

"Give this back to your brother, okay," he said, softly. "And tell him…tell him _I'm sorry_."

Finn nodded, grabbed the keys from the bench, and watched Karofsky push the door open with his knee.

Hitting the lights and joining him in the hallway, he wondered if he'd helped or just fucked things up worse.

He didn't know, he just knew that if he were right, if all of this had been because of _love_, that had to count for something.

_Four years was a long time…_

8


End file.
